Strength Through Wounding
by Rae Seddon
Summary: Steve Burnside, from his capture to the end of Code Veronica...I felt compelled after beating the game to write this.


It's a pretty typically male parental thing to say that discomfort builds character and what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. It's also a pretty parental thing to lie to your kids, and like most parents, and their parents before them, my parents took the same tact.

But somewhere...somewhere between the failed corporate espionage and the mafia-style down sizing my father and mother suffered for it, that tact was thrown out of the window. A more apt version would probably be "there are things that kill you, and things that make you stronger."I guess you could call this a 'sins of the father' type situation, or 'guilt by association' would work too. I didn't even know what dad was up to. To be honest I thought he was having an affair, not selling corporate secrets. An affair, in hindsight, would have been preferable—so would the accompanying months of on-again-off-again forgiveness and raging arguments that usually precluded a very nasty, financially-motivated divorce. I'm sure mom would have preferred that to a bullet to the brain, which was what she got.

I walked home that day, from school, wanting to avoid a confrontation on the bus that would have resulted in more than one black eye and busted lip. I never fought if I could help it—humor was one of my best weapons, the ability to defuse a situation before it escalated to fists—but I could hold my own if it came to that. I just wasn't in the mood, is all. I got in a little before four, when mom usually starts dinner. Moms have amazing internal clocks, and mine was no different. She neither wore a watch nor glanced at a clock while cooking. _Everything_ worked on intuition with her. She greeted me with the phone in one hand and a whisk in the other. I dropped my bags at the door, took the whisk and continued to beat the egg mixture for what would eventually be a soufflé. Onions and garlic were simmering in ginger oil on a burner to her side. She turned the heat down, emphasizing her conversation on the phone.

"_Exactly_ what I would have done Mary. Uh-huh...well of course, sweetie!"

Mary was my older cousin who was in the middle of a bad break-up with her live-in boyfriend Reese. No one liked Reese. My mother made sure to affirm that to Mary every time she called for advice. "That's enough dear," she said, forgetting to cover the receiver. "Oh no, not you dear, Steve's helping with dinner." She winked at me over the phone as the would-be soufflé transferred homes from the mixing bowl to a pottery crock I'd made as a Home Ec. project ages ago. The kind every kid makes in Home Ec. The sound of the stove opening and closing nearly masked the sound that would save my life. The jerking crack of the front door being slammed open, accompanied by sounds I had only heard once or twice, through ear-muffs, the kind they use at shooting ranges: four thundering _bangs!_ And something heavy fell to my left. She didn't even have time to scream. Mom was there, lying on the floor with four holes in her, the one in her head spouting blood like a low-pressure water fountain. Five men stood in the archway to the kitchen, holding a large, struggling man between them; my father. I screamed. Dad screamed. It took me a minute to realize they weren't going to shoot and I wasn't going to die. It also took me a minute or two to process that my mother was _leaking_ at my feet. If it weren't for the bullets and the blood, I'd have thought she'd fainted from the sight of five strange men and my father in the kitchen. I tried to tell myself I was imagining the blood. Not surprisingly, it didn't stick. I screamed again, grabbed the first thing I could reach, a cleaver, the only thought in my head how much I had tried to _avoid_ a fight on the way home. I didn't care if they mowed me down like a dog, I didn't think bullets could stop my heart from breaking, my rage from consuming all of them, even dad.

Still, they didn't shoot. One of them rather nonchalantly brought his baton down over my skull, not enough to knock me out but enough. I stopped, I dropped the knife and two of them grabbed me, force-marched me to a black van and tossed dad and me in the back. As soon as the doors slammed shut I started screaming again, cursing the men, cursing their existence and damning them to a thousand torturous Chinese Hells. I'd seen Big Trouble in Little China, I knew the Chinese had a lot of hells. I stopped to throw up but kept screaming for a little while after.

Dad just sorta sat in the corner of the van and cried, repeating when he could, "I'm sorry." For some freakish reason, I couldn't cry, I don't think my brain had caught up to that bit yet. When I finished screaming, I walked over and tried to comfort dad, thinking that we were part of some weird terrorist plot and as soon as the cops found mom, the FBI would be all over the bastards. Dad shook his head and tried to shake off my grip, blubbering. I was amazed and horrified at the same time that I wasn't in the same state. It isn't every day a kid is part of a wacko terrorist plot.

Dad, after a while of me holding his thick shoulders—shoulders I used to lean on as a scrawny, perpetually picked-on red-head—looked into my eyes and started talking. He talked about his job, things he'd overhead and the recent de-unionization of all the Umbrella drivers. He talked about talking to other people, powerful men at another company, about the things he'd overheard. He talked about secret meetings and more money than I could wrap my seventeen year old mind around; money enough to send me and six of my great-grandkids to Ivy League schools. He talked about being set-up, about things going bad, about Umbrella finding out. About Umbrella goons breaking into the house, killing mom and taking the two of us god knows where.

Then, he stopped talking and hugged me, and then, I cried. I threw up again too but dad didn't care. Parents can be amazingly forgiving about stuff like that, and the circumstances were a little special. Either way I apologized, just sane enough to be embarrassed about loosing my lunch. Dad didn't let me go for the rest of the ride, holding me like I was still five and needed to be rocked to sleep. He didn't say much accept, "I love you," but I couldn't say anything back. I was starting to hate him along with the men. Not that he'd ever know that: I was still too scared to have him let me go. We rode forever in that stirring silence, my hatred growing but never overcoming the fear.

When the van finally stopped the men tore us apart, dad struggling to get back to me as they shuffled us towards a cargo plane, its hatch open and lined with what looked like large animal cages. The cages, upon closer inspection were filled with people, all dressed in similar uniforms: tiger stripe cammo pants, a yellow tank top and a navy blue button up tee shirt. There were just as many men as women. The men took dad up towards the front of the hold but shuffled me in through the direct back, up the ramp and into a cage of my own. In the cage was a uniform that they told me to put on. I did, but not before I noticed the lettering on the back. "Rockfort Prison 267 Steve" it read.

Suddenly, what my father had told me on that terrible ride filtered into my numb brain. They _knew. He knew. _They had my name and number just waiting like a rigged game show. I realized that I had no interest in finding out what my prize was. For the first time, my rage overcame the fear.

_"You knew! You fat sonofabitch you knew this was going to happen! You fucking goddamn son of a bitch you knew this was going to fucking happen! Why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you fucking stop them mother fucker!" _ It went on like that for a while until they forced me into the uniform and gagged me. There was a woman in a cage next to me, she was older, pretty and looked a lot like mom. She looked half starved too and had a swollen lip and cradled one of her arms close to her stomach, the wrist twisted in an altogether unnatural position. Despite that, she reached out and held my hand for a lot of the ride. She never spoke and I couldn't, so we passed the flight like that until a guard patrolling the hold kicked our hands apart and threatened to break her other wrist.

The adrenaline from my out-burst was making it impossible to sleep, although a cool female voice announced that there was still eight hours left to the flight. I was too pissed to sleep. Somewhere in my brain it registered that I had skipped a descent number of the supposed seven stages of grief. I'd detoured briefly into disbelief back at the house but otherwise gone straight into anger. I tried to remember what was after anger, but nothing came to mind. I seriously doubted anything could get passed the anger that I'd become. The problem with becoming an emotion like that is that if you don't take it out on something, it fizzled, and I wasn't ready for it to fizzle. I wanted every ounce of the shit running through my body when I tore dad, and the men, limb from limb.

Eventually, a man came around with a cart of what looked like soup and placed the bowls in our cages. I was hungry, so I wiggled the gag free and sipped a little; took five seconds to register it tasted like shit before my eyes closed, heavy with a sudden and deep sleep. I woke alone in a cell with a set of bunk beds and cold, cement walls. Bars lined one wall, over-looking a narrow cement walkway. I was on the second floor and could hear movement, shuffling and whispered talking everywhere. I learned from other prisoners who hadn't eaten during the plane trip I was somewhere south of the equator, on an island off of Capetown, South Africa. I also learned in those crucial few minutes that no one, apparently, had survived past forty days internment on Rockfort Island.

Rockfort wasn't a normal prison, there was no library or book cart so I spent a lot of time angry and thinking. More angry than thinking most of the time. The things I tended to think about didn't do much to abate the anger. I thought about if anyone had found mom or if the Umbrella bastards had dumped her body in a concentration-camp-esque mass grave somewhere. I thought about if when my forty days were up they'd execute dad and me together for the same crime, or do one before the other. I knew by then they did things the old fashioned way at Rockfort, by guillotine. I learned a lot in the first week or so, things I would have deemed useless if it wasn't for what happened on day 28 of my imprisonment there.

The walls came down. Literally. One minute they were standing the next minute, kaboom, rubble. Air-raid sirens were blaring, and hell had broken loose. My first thought was that someone had orchestrated a rather melodramatic prison break, until the prisoners themselves started running for their lives—and not from the guards. The guards were running too, from the monsters. I saw this thing that looked like a mini creature from the black lagoon jump up and cleave someone in half with one blow. They moved like lightning, and those that evaded the mortal wounds had wounds that actively festered. Behind the monsters were more people, only they moved funny—dragging their feet and only going after people if they were a certain distance away. I saw two of the prisoners with guns try to take one of them down. The first shot took off about half the cheek but the bastard just kept coming until he was on the prisoner and taking a chunk out of his face with their teeth.

I was actually still locked in my cell as this was going on. I had a second-floor panoramic view that was occasionally obstructed by a screaming prisoner or guard bellowing commands to what was left of their squad. I asked, very kindly if frantically, for one such guard to let me out. He shook his head and told me that I'd be better off in there. I didn't think so at first, but I did in a few hours, long after the guard had been put through the meat-grinder that was the first floor of the prison. Then and only then did the phrase, 'what does not kill us makes us stronger' apply. I should have been a quivering, sobbing wreck but living with the anger for so long had changed me. I could stand watching people die. By the end of it, a number of guards and prisoners alike had barricaded themselves on the second floor but died anyway when the people-monsters had learned to climb stairs.

_"People-monsters? Don't you mean zombies?" _ I'd asked myself at one point.

My escape turned out to be pretty low tech. I wasn't MacGyver then and never had been: I escaped by kicking at the lock a lot until it broke. Then I stepped over the bodies and made a mad-dash for the courtyard. I had to dodge a few zombies in the cemetery but that proved pretty easy for a guy that ran track since freshman year. I had begged dad to let me try out for soccer too, but mom had said one booster club was enough and that was that. The memory hurt, so I pushed it out of my mind and continued my sprint towards the courtyard.

Thought came in spurts, like "Run, door, dodge, gun...gun?" It was a handgun of some kind, nothing I'd ever actually fired at the range but if it had a trigger I figured I could get the rest without need of an instruction manual. It had a full clip, which came in handy for the zombies in courtyard when I finally reached it. The truth was I didn't know exactly why I had made for the courtyard to begin with, I remembered once I was there: the guard tower. It looked pretty well deserted, no dead bodies; the stairs were apparently to steep for the walking brain-starved to climb so I made my way up to safety just as the rain started.

The guard tower was mounted with a pivoting machine gun, which I was forced to promptly employ against few zombies that wandered in from the other end of the yard: a few seconds of _rata-tat-tat-tat-tat!_ And viola, Swiss cheese a la zombie. And, for a while, nothing happened. The planes ceased their assault but the monsters and zombies were really just beginning theirs. Again, my vantage point in this was unparalleled—that's not to say I enjoyed it. No one tried to make for the tower like I had and I kept the searchlight off in lieu of attracting unwanted attention. For the most part I would spend the next few hours huddling in the back of the tower, away from the cold and rain, waiting for the screaming to stop.

When it did, I assumed I was the only human left alive in the whole of Rockfort Prison. Slowly, my mind turned towards the concept of food, then to escape. A millionth look around the cramped cement box I'd secluded myself in provided no magically appearing roast chickens, which I was actually surprised at, despite the fact that I'd known there was no food five minutes after I got up there. Rockfort, as a prison, was a pretty advanced piece of technology and that fact that there wasn't so much as a dumbwaiter system was, frankly, amusing. I laughed until it occurred to me I was hysterical and forced several slow, deep breaths from my aching diaphragm. Next thought: escape, really only two choices when water is concerned and those were by plane or by boat. I had experience with both, thanks to things like flying lessons and weekend fishing trips. Somehow the boat came out on top, as I figured at the time there'd be more of them. I was, after all, on an island.

About the time I was considering heading to where I thought the port might me, if it wasn't a mass of cooling cinders, the door from the graveyard opened and, surprised, I blinded whatever came out with the searchlight and opened fire with the machine gun...but it wasn't there. It was hiding behind a ruined chunk of cement and iron wall. The speed at which it had moved was amazing, and I hoped to god that I hadn't with the searchlight just put up a 'good eats' sign to one of the mini black lagoon monsters. My fears were doused when what I was firing at _fired back_ at me. The shots blew out the searchlight, leaving only the waving and uncertain light of a shrouded moon. And what stepped out from behind that cement wall was an angel. I didn't really believe in angels then, and I doubted they appeared wielding M93Rs ready to mow down droves of the undead. But there she was all the same. Dark auburn hair, chocolate in the moonlight with eyes that glittered like stars, sharing their same cold, clear intensity; tall, with a lean, trimmed hourglass figure, she wore a pair of boots, dark blue jeans, a skin-tight quarter sleeved black belly-shirt topped with a red, decaled vest. I must have stared because the first thing she said was, "Looking for something?"

_"A way out,"_ I replied, introducing myself. _"I'm Steve Burnside, were you a prisoner here_?"

She, her named turned out to be Claire, didn't look like a resident of the female prison population, but maybe she'd been one and found her civvies. Cute didn't always mean harmless and I wasn't about to take my chances. That and the thought of someone relying on me, caring about me again was too much. Not that I'd have admitted it.

"For about five minutes," Claire replied, "we should stick together though. It's really dangerous to be going it alone."

I shrugged, already starting to make for the door to the other end of the yard, once I knew what Claire was all about. Teamwork just wasn't my thing. I said as much and vanished through the door, Claire calling after me through the dying wind. We met a while later, as I was trying to use what computer knowledge I had as a seventeen year old internet junkie to figure out where exactly the port was; I learned that Claire had a brother, a rather kickass one at that, whom she seemed to have an undo amount of faith in...or so I thought at the time. I had faith in my dad to be a responsible, logical adult and not get caught up in this corporate spy bullshit. I hoped he died in the air-raid. I told myself he had and prayed that would be the end of it. I was above death, after all.

Which is why, when he shambled into that cluttered storeroom with all intention to make a midnight snack out of Claire, all I could do was _stare._ There he was, my father, his skin as diseased and ashen as the creatures I'd been slaughtering for the last six hours; a ragged gash in his stomach with blood still leaking out, like mom was, and a pair of white, cataract eyes.

"Steve!"

Dad was reaching down for Claire, who was trapped under a bunch of fallen wooden crates, and as soon as she said my name, I just started to fire, with full intention of making the creature as unrecognizable as possible. It was not my father. My father was dead.

_"Of course he's dead you killed him."_

I was too prone to help Claire out from under the crates, I was too busy screaming, and I'm pretty sure all of the stages of grief I'd skipped over the past month or so caught up to me then. I begged and pleaded with god, I wished it was me in his place, I went through a list of 'if only' statements a mile long, I told him I loved him, that I was sorry and that I would do anything to hear him laugh again, but I wouldn't; couldn't join him just yet. Claire needed me. I hadn't told her about why my father and I were there, but I did then, as soon as she extricated herself. I felt shitty for crying in front of a girl I'd come to admire, but, just like dad, she didn't mind. She was so sweet and kind and beautiful that I couldn't tell that made me cry too. And that I believed in angels.

We went through a lot on that island, escaping in the nick of time as the whole place went 'boom' and it made me glad that it did, that dad had a resting place after all. Our next unintended stop was Antarctica...and I'd never leave. Claire did, I'm sure. She was sitting next to me with her hand on my cheek and it was so warm. But she was crying; I wanted to tell her not to, but even if she didn't she's still beautiful. I didn't feel the cold any more although I'm sure it was, it's the goddamn South Pole after all, Saint Nick and zombies and little elves screaming and running and turning green and killing things. Like I almost did. I almost killed her.

"Its okay, my brother's here he'll get us both away, safe, please hang on! Steve!"

I didn't really know what she meant by 'hang on' anymore, so I just squeezed her hand to calm her down. She wasn't just warm anymore, she was burning and it hurt but she didn't let go and neither did I. And I got the urge to tell her something, something important. But why? I was only taking a nap I could tell her when I got up...we didn't sleep much on the flight over anyway.

_"I love you, Claire."_


End file.
